


and i'd promise you anything

by dreadedlaramie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Sam's POV, Second Person, canonical character death then un-death, the road so far
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 06:18:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5994580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadedlaramie/pseuds/dreadedlaramie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You measure time by landmarks: Stanford. Hell. Tuscaloosa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and i'd promise you anything

**Author's Note:**

> i was originally going to do this as a twine, and tbh i might still do that, and probably it'd flow better that way-- but anyhow. that, incidentally, is why this is in second person (and also it's because i secretly love second person).

You think you know how this story is supposed to go.

 

[[now]]

 

Your brother is dead.

 

Your brother is dead and it wasn't this grand and violent climax, just the quick jab of a blade to the heart, a few times for good measure.

You watched it happen this time, too. It will feel like you're always watching it happen, this time, too -- you still sometimes have to watch hellhounds tear Dean apart and it's been years.

 

[[the road so far]]

 

Dean is driving through one of the Great Plains states, all corn and telephone poles and highway mile-markers -- you're not sure where you are, aren't even one-hundred percent sure where you're going, Iowa, you think, or Illinois (Indiana?), but Dean does and that's good enough.

 

The sun is setting somewhere behind you and the way light and shadow are playing off each other, off the dashboard and the steering wheel and the curve of Dean's cheek -- the whole thing reminds you so much of Tuscaloosa you might fucking puke.

 

There's music playing but the stereo is turned down low enough that the whirr of the cassette is too loud for you to place it.

 

"Where are we?" you ask, your voice still a bit thick with sleep.

 

"A-ways outside Kearney," he says. "Nebraska," he adds, because you were asleep for the last state line. "Another few hours til Joliet."

He says "a-ways" but you know that he knows exactly how far it's been-- just like he knows exactly how much longer it'll take you to get where you're going, exactly how much longer before you have to stop for gas, exactly how much longer he can drive if he pushes himself.

 

Roads and days and towns blur together until you're not sure if the Midwest isn't just the same place over and over again, if you've just been driving around in pointless circles all these years.

 

If you ever really left Kansas or if Lawrence has had you trapped for decades now.

 

You reach the small bit forward to turn up the radio, and you still can't place the song, but the sound of the road under the Impala's tires was getting old and the unfamiliar noise is a welcome change.

 

Dean gives you a look for that but seems to ultimately decide that turning up the radio doesn't violate the 'passenger shuts his cakehole' clause of the car rules.

 

Dean has about thirty cassettes, but there's ones he won't listen to anymore (he doesn't say why, just rips them out of the tape deck if you try to put one in), so in practice it feels a lot more like just six.

(You used to make fun of him for it, just a little, but sometime after Tuscaloosa it stopped being funny. Now he just closes up and turns off if you say something about it.)

 

The first thing Dean does when you come to a new job and a new town is scan through radio stations and mess with the presets-- you find the copy stores and the libraries, Dean finds the best hits from before '85.

 

You curl into the corner of the seat and pull your jacket over you like a blanket.

"If you fuck with me while I'm asleep, I'll kill you."

 

He laughs and says "Night, Sleeping Beauty."

His unpained laugh makes your chest ache, so rare since Hell.

 

(The second thing Dean does is find a liquor store, and you would say something about that if you weren't so tired, if you weren't so goddamn grateful for a six-pack in the motel fridge every time.)

 

\----

 

Stop.

 

This isn’t the story.

 

Not anymore.

 

[[now]]

 

Your brother is dead and fucking gone and you need to focus.

 

One hundred eighty pounds sounds a lot heavier than it feels when you carry him to the Impala.

 

You put your coat down under him so blood doesn't get on the backseat -- you laugh at that and it's hollow.

 

You drive back to the bunker, because you have nowhere else to go.

You want to crash the car, want to scream or cry or punch something -- want to do anything but deliver your brother('s corpse, you remind yourself, unnecessarily) to a hunter's funeral.

 

You manage to keep the car between the ditches, somehow, don't crash.

 

You get there and you’re alone and you have never once in your life been so grateful for solitude.

 

You wouldn't be able to handle talking to someone right now.

 

You carry Dean to his room, because it's the closest thing to home, and lay him out on the bed.

 

When you get him back, however you manage that, he'll need a body.

 

(Just like last time.)

 

[[then]]

 

Tuscaloosa is a before and after and the Rubicon runs straight through Alabama.

 

You don’t like to think about it.

 

Before Tuscaloosa, everything that was wrong was you.

 

After Tuscaloosa…

 

Well.

 

You don’t like to think about it.

 

[[now]]

 

In the dungeon, you summon Crowley.

 

Or.

 

You try to, anyway.

 

Nothing happens.

 

Nothing happens so you go back to Dean, because you don’t know what else to do, because you always go back to Dean.

 

Dean’s gone.

 

This isn’t how the story is supposed to go.

 

[[then]]

 

“You and me against the world, right, Sammy?”

 

You’re ten and Dean’s fourteen and you’re already brothers but you aren’t  _ blood _ brothers (or, well, you  _ are _ , but--)

 

Dean’s blood is just wet against your palm (you don’t know what else you expected) when you shake hands, decisive and final-- or maybe it’s your blood, you can’t tell.

 

It doesn’t matter, and that’s the point of it, and that’ll always be the point of it.

 

[[now]]

 

This isn’t how the story is supposed to go, and there’s a note.

 

SAMMY LET ME GO

 

There’s one rule you never follow, never have followed (...except, once), never will (again).

 

There’s one rule you never follow and. well. You aren’t going to start now.

 

[[then]]

 

In Tuscaloosa, he presses his body full flush against yours and his body screams  _ intent _ .

 

And you’re already brothers, and you’re already blood brothers, but you aren’t-- this other deeper (worse) thing. (Yet.)

 

Because when he asks you to fuck him, you do; when he asks you to fuck him  _ hard _ , you do.

 

He doesn’t think so, but you’d do anything for him.

 

[[now]]

 

SAMMY LET ME GO

  
You don’t.

 

[[then]]

 

In Tuscaloosa, nothing changes.


End file.
